Teaching German

Germany

Press: UN to Take Terrorist Off Terror List

The United Nations is to strike a convicted Jordanian extremist from its list of terror suspects following a request from German authorities, newsweekly
Der Spiegel reported in its Monday issue. The magazine said Shadi Abdellah, who was jailed by a German court in November 2003 for four years on charges of membership in a terrorist organization, would be the first suspect to be taken from the UN list. Abdallah, who claimed to work briefly as a bodyguard for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was released from prison in November after serving more than half his sentence.
Der Spiegel said that because Abdellah has cooperated with German authorities, Berlin had put in the request to "rehabilitate" him. He had figured on the UN terror suspects list since 2003. The report said the effort met with initial resistance from US authorities, who said that Abdellah was lying to feign cooperation with German police. But German Interior Minister Otto Schily intervened and allowed US investigators to question Abdellah, who is now to testify in the US trial of Frenchman Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person facing criminal charges directly linked to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, according to the report. A spokesman from the German interior ministry refused to comment.